LasersHurt:Fail in Human Form: I'm not willing to hand over my entire life to the government simply because they tell me, "it's for my own good."

They can potentially access data. Your life has changed in no way. But your "entire life" has been handed over to them?

I don't think the rhetoric matches the rhubarb, is what I am saying. We need to learn more, and maybe calm the fart down a little.

Herein lies the beauty of this sort of surveillance, and why we will so willingly bend over and take it - it isn't inconvenient for us. The collection of this data is a painless process that isn't going to interrupt our watching Game of Thrones, so we'll shrug it off and move on.

If it required NSA agents to turn up at the door with their secret court issued warrant for our browser history then we'd have a real problem with it.

The smarter question to ask is not whether or not terrorist attacks have been thwarted, one would assume that if you're listening in on EVERYTHING you'd catch someone. The question should be 'was there a less invasive way of thwarting those attacks.' And the answer is most definitely 'yes' since we've always been doing it long before 911 and all this crap.

The Boston bombings prove that this can't stop everything, and of course terrorists have an ironclad way around this which is simply not to communicate over phone/email. Sure that makes things more difficult, but not that difficult. So in the end this is nothing but a giant invasive net that doesn't replace traditional investigative methods and is easy to get around.

Since most people are functionally disenfranchised unless they live in a battleground district, that is not really all that true.

"Functionally" because? Because everyone votes for one guy no matter what he's done. Still a people problem.

skozlaw:LasersHurt: You also have no more reason to believe that this has ever hurt any innocent person than you do that it has

The probability is non-zero which is infinitely higher than what is required to offset any unproven benefit that's been claimed.

We're working from two different ends on this. You seem to be of the opinion that this could potentially be justified. I see no possible way that could happen. The "evidence" as to what's already been done is inconsequential to me because my position is that it's impossible to justify complete secrecy in this matter. I have little interest in what happened at this point unless what happened was actually illegal and those involved could be prosecuted (which seems highly improbable thanks to PATRIOT). Instead, I'd prefer we worry about how it can either be adapted in the future so that it's not just completely secret government spying on its own citizens or, better yet, completely dismantled.

You are assuming that this WILL hurt innocents, and I suppose you're assuming at a higher rate than traditional methods. I'm not sure I agree with that. If your complaint is that it's non-zero and you want zero, then all law enforcement is off the table, as there is no such thing.

Fail in Human Form:LasersHurt: Fail in Human Form: I agree there's a lot of "what ifs". But we'll get to the bottom of it. There's a mountain of suits spinning up over this as we speak; I think it's a matter of time.

I like your optimism, but not a chance. This program will never be stopped, I'd bet good money it'll be expanded over time, and all the government has to do with the lawsuits is claim state secrets and it's over.

I dislike your pessimism. Fatalist attitudes keeps you from properly pushing for the truth to come out. Remember, we're ultimately responsible for the makeup of our government.

To what avail? When this came out, remember congress VOTED for this according to the administration, many said they had never heard of this before. They then got a very short private meeting about it which lead to some saying the PATRIOT Act needed to be repealed after the meeting.

And then what, they did nothing? Buried their heads in the sand? Better re-elect them. Hell they passed it in the first place, better re-elect them.

Acting like we're not largely responsible for this ourselves is ridiculous.

It's really not that hard for the government to foil a terrorist attack when the government comes up with the plan, finances the plan, provides materials, equipment and manpower for the plan, and then blackmails some idiot into joining the plan.

skozlaw:There is literally no reason but blind faith to believe any of that was used for the reasons they claim. Going strictly by the evidence, you have no more reason to believe they used those wiretaps to stop attacks than that they used them to steal people's homemade porn.

You also have no more reason to believe that this has ever hurt any innocent person than you do that it has. So my point is chill out and fight for the evidence to be released. High rhetoric doesn't accomplish anything.

Pocket Ninja:You're being snarky, subby. Ha, ha, I get snarky. But to be serious for a moment, seriously, what you have to remember is that if there's a successful terrorist attack, that attack becomes an inspiration for other terrorists. Who then plan other attacks, and if they're successful those in turn become inspirations. So there's a ripple effect that ripples out like ripples from even a single event, see? So, realistically, once you factor in those and other extrapolatables, stopping even 1 attack is actually the equivalent to stopping ten, thirty, a hundred potential attacks. Hell, it could even be a thousand attacks if you really factor it out. Try to not be so cynical and maybe show some gratitude here; imagine if there had been 1000 terrorist attacks last year.

I know, I know, I mean just look at how many planes were flown into skyscrapers after 9/11 and before this program was in place. Walking through the streets in any city was like raining cats and dogs only it was raining bodies and debris. The lines of terrorists in front of the cockpit door in airplanes was longer than the lines waiting to go pee.

I'm supposed to show gratitude for having been put in danger in the first place by the same people that now advocate for tighter surveillance? What is wrong with you?

I can't believe you people honestly believe there hasn't been a 9/11 level attack in this country since 2001 because... what? Al Qaeda has lost interest? They're saving it up for the Big One? I can well believe that dozens of potential attacks have been thwarted in the past twelve years, and that the NSA's surveillance has had a big part in that. I don't like it any more than you do but the fact of the matter is that taking this stuff public would be, and now is, disastrous. For instance, the recent spate of publicity has made one thing very clear to potential terrorists in this country--don't try to contact al Qaeda. If you do, you will be infiltrated and neutralized. The result? "Lone gunmen"s like the Tsarnaevs building home-made bombs out of easily obtained materials. Expect more of them. If the NSA checking lists of people who bought pressure cookers against lists of people who made large fireworks purchases (just as I'm sure they look out for people who bought large amounts of diesel fuel and fertilizer after Oklahoma City) prevents your teenager from having her legs blown off in an explosion at your local mall, I'm reluctantly in favor of it. Sorry.

I honestly don't understand how this needs clarification. He said "The potential for abuse far outweighs any benefit in using this method to prevent terrorists attacks. " This asserts that there is NO AMOUNT of good that could ever outweigh some theoretical abuse in the future.

My objection to this in NO WAY implies that abuse is IMPOSSIBLE, or that gov't employees who abused it would be "above reproach." I really don't know where you're getting this connection.

PRISM, which we won't tell you anything about, is stopping attacks, which we won't tell you anything about in places we won't tell you anything about at times we won't tell you anything about and is overseen by a court we won't tell you anything about that issues warrants we won't tell you anything about.

So, yea, trust us!

/ seems legit// I'd be a lot more surprised about all this if we hadn't known about it for more than a decade and the current guy in power hadn't made it clear he was all for this 1984-style bullshiat back in 2007 by voting for the telco immunity bill.....